SOUND CHECK: Five Finger Death Punch hits harder with 'off the chain' tour

GARY GRAFF

Published
12:00 am EDT, Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Five Finger Death Punch has been touring for nearly a year to promote its third album, "American Capitalist." So it makes sense that for its latest outing, the Trespass America Festival tour, the heavy rockers from Los Angeles would design a bigger and better show.

"It's the biggest tour we've ever done," says guitarist Jason Hook. "Our show is like a mix between Iron Maiden and the Kiss 'Love Gun' tour. It's off the chain. We kind of take an over-the-top approach to everything we do, but I think this time we even outdid ourselves."

Hook, 41, prefers not to get too specific about what people will see -- "I don't want to give it away," he claims -- but he does acknowledge there are "highlights" to the show.

"Jeremy (Spencer)'s drum solo is pretty cool," Hook notes. "We've added a bunch of new material in the set to keep it fresh, too -- I mean stuff that we haven't played before live. And one of the songs is our brand new single, 'Coming Down.' To play that and see people react to it is kind of cool."

The band also has a new/old song out this summer, -- a cover of Faith No More's "From Out of Nowhere," which FFDP initially recorded as a bonus track for its 2007 debut album "The Way of the Fist" and found its way onto the soundtrack album for "The Avengers."

"The label called us up and said, 'Hey, we have an opportunity to get a song on this soundtrack. Do you guys have any unreleased material that we could use?'" recalls Hook, who terms himself more into "military history, documentaries and stuff like that."

"I'm not really the comic book guy or the superhero guy. I follow all that stuff, but that's never been my zone. I'm not sure who that guy in our band would be ... but we appreciated the opportunity. We know a lot of people heard it."

The Trespass America Festival, with Five Finger Death Punch, Killswitch Engage, Trivium, God Forbid, Battlecross, Pop Evil and Emmure, plays at 5 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 4, at the Meadow Brook Music Festival on the Oakland University campus in Rochester Hills. Tickets are $46 and $36 pavilion, $26 lawn with an $84 lawn four-pack. Call 248-377-0100 or visit www.palacenet.com.

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